In 2022, I lived in 3 different places. I had 3 jobs, 2 cars, 2 moves. I traveled to 2 new countries and 3 new states. Twos and threes.

2022 was by no means the hardest year of my life. 2021 covets that distinction. But it might have been the busiest. In 2022, I was a weightless thing that got lost in the slip stream of a fair few far more impactful things. My capricious little roots try not to grow fond on this sweet Earth; it’s been some time since I’ve been anywhere for very long. But all these twos and threes, like arrowheads in this new soil, I think they’ve set me up.

I happen to delight in this time of year. While the mob of voices shouts “get on with it already!” having passed the Christmas season they were all living for, I relish in this stillness. The undisturbed air that allows the dust to swirl and the atmosphere to grow warm. The lush silence that blankets the days. One whole week between the crest of the year and the end. I look forward to it.

This week between Christmas and New Years is the marrow of the year. The most indulgent, rare, and coveted part that can only be picked from the bones after the meat is all gone. One last inhale. The exhilarating, melancholic, unstoppable end of something that poets adore.

One holiday that doesn’t perch on the backs of religion or colonization or consumption. One day of the year when we decide to wear our best, and drink the finest champagne, and light colors in the sky. When we gather to count down the looming death of an age and anticipate a kiss to greet the nascent year. What a tremendously beautiful thing; humanity finally converging just to appreciate more of life.

And here I sit, perched on the cliff’s end of 2022. I make these little promises to myself and I center my body in my intentions after another year spent divining what I can from the unknown. I pack away the things I’ve decided to put down here on this cliff, and I honor them. Another year takes with it much that I’ve been. I wish it all well, here at the end of things.

In this last quiet breath, I acknowledge that I am but a wild animal with the tremendous capacity to feel. I will never be more than that. I decline responsibility for the consequences of things I cannot change or prevent. I part with the fear of uncertainty because in 2023, I will lean my weaker faculties on trust.

2022’s grand scheme was surrender. To surrender to these slipstreams I can’t affect anyway. And now I will have faith that I will be caught by another when I fall, and that they will take me somewhere worth being. I will listen to the call of my body above the howling of my critics. I will remember how remarkable I am, how astonishing that it is that I’m here, how profound it is that I love and that I’m in love and that I have all that I have, even in this temporary way.

There is no life worth living in which I cannot be safe in my authenticity. And 2023 will not be without its trials, I don’t desire it to be. I surrendered to that long ago. But I will have trust in the freefall, in these twos and threes that came before it.